La première marche (No Contest)

Short

On his way to a rave in the Argentine Pampas, Martín takes refuge in a mysterious tavern after a strange accident. As night falls, paranoia and eerie visions blur reality, revealing lurking supernatural forces.

Short

Every day, Achraf is haunted by an imposing knight’s armor that follows him everywhere: to work, with friends, and even onstage as a drag king. Invisible to others, the armor grows harder to ignore, reflecting the pressures, fears, and inner battles that quietly shape his life.

Short

Determined to prove to his father that he is the city's most feared gangster, Alessandro sets out to rob a bar with his friend Joe. However, when they discover that it is a drag queen bar and that the star performer is Alessandro's father in drag, the night takes an unexpected turn.

Short

A court, a cell, awaiting a sentence. Two boys : Warda, a Lebanese refugee and Ange, a white delinquent. An attempted escape in the toilets sparks a manhunt, and the two fugitives, despite their different languages, try to imagine their fate together.

Short

Trans women boxers share their stories of gender euphoria, struggles, and resilience, revealing the powerful bonds they build through their shared practice of the sport.

Short

Najib, a reserved 16-year-old, spends his summer alone, absorbed in video games. When his elderly Algerian neighbor disappears, he secretly takes her apartment keys and uncovers traces of a vanished world. Through this quiet exploration, he begins to open himself to others and to islands on the verge of disappearing.

Short

Vivek navigates the chronic pain caused by the pressures of advocating for diversity, finding healing and strength through weightlifting.

FeatureVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Get ready for Amantes, a sexy trope-bender that defies love triangles, calling for a new shape to lesbian relationships and in a softer tone of feminist discourse. Set in romantic Paris, this series of intertwined stories from an all-female cast is sure to open minds just as much as hearts. Ruby, podcaster for Everybody Wants to Say I Love You is driven by psychological feminist theories as she explores the complexities of relationships between women—although her devotion to work leaves her wife Gabrielle wanting. Then there’s Nour, a fun and passionate singer who cannot resist the level-headed, down-to-earth Camille; and let’s not forget the gorgeous throuple: Rebecca, Laura, and Ophelie whose polyamory puts a delightful spin on relationship milestones like meeting the parents and having children. More women surround these relationships—friends, exes, and interested parties—all of whom are navigating the “unconscious contract of commitment.” More than your typical rom-com, Amantes delivers a refreshingly light-hearted and vulnerable narrative that bears resemblance to The L Word when she meets Sex and the City and invites Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona to tag along for an hour and a half of steamy sapphic fun.

DocumentaryVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Uniting from across continents to bring representation to the sport they love, Indigenous Rising laces up their skates to claim their space on the roller derby track. Indigenous Rising is the first team in roller derby history to break the barriers of representing a single country at the Roller Derby World Cup—igniting a movement that pulsates throughout the sport and within each other. Rising Through the Fray follows the team as it welcomes a new generation of players determined to change the face of roller derby—an inclusive, female-empowering sport still lacking diversity. With a compassionate, candid lens, Courtney Montour weaves energetic on-track game play with tender moments in teammates’ daily lives as skaters from over 30 Indigenous Nations navigate and learn each other’s play styles at tournaments and find strength within each other to compete and skate onto the track with pride. Intimate portraits of teammates Sour Cherry, Krispy and Hawaiian Blaze reveal stories of displacement and disconnection from their culture and identities and the journey of finding belonging within team Indigenous Rising. Rising Through the Fray offers a poignant exploration of resiliency, healing and reconnection of a roller derby family with a bond that goes beyond sport.

Feature

Based on Fleur Pierets’ memoir of the same name, Julian tells the heart-wrenching love story between the author Fleur and Julian Demoor and Project 22—their international LGBTQ+ marriage campaign of 2017 that was brought to an abrupt halt by tragic circumstances. In 2017, it was legal for same-sex couples to get married in twenty-two countries worldwide, hence the birth of the performance art piece: Project 22. Fleur Pierets, a Belgian journalist and LGBTQ+ activist, came up with the idea to travel around the world and marry Julian—her partner in life as well as business (as co-founders of Et Alors? Magazine)—and not only once, but in every country where it was possible. The goal? To raise awareness on how few places same-sex couples could legally marry. Director Cato Kusters provides a fictionalized account spanning the campaign, from the years 2017–2019, with home-movie-esque film segments that provide an immersive peek into this courageous couple’s experience, both behind the scenes, on the road, and after the fact—moments of joy and silliness, as well as the intimacy, doubt, uncertainty of fighting for one’s rights while also fighting for one’s life.

Short

In a dystopian future, two women flee exploitation and find love in a remote cabin, only to face relentless pursuit and a tragic fate.

Feature

CROATIAN • FRENCH ST | Marko, slight but mighty, seems always in control, always a champion—but what happens when he slips his banks? As “unstable air” portends torrential rains for a small Croatian village, the return of Marko’s former neighbour is the rush that might pull him under. Marko (Lav Novosel in a natural, understated performance) has a full life: a brother with Down syndrome (Leon Grgić) who he treats with a soft attentiveness; learning discipline from his father (Filip Šovagović) in the lead up to an arm-wrestling competition; chanting about female anatomy with his buds before pestering his girlfriend Petra (Franka Mikolaci) for sex. But there’s another side to his even-keeled bravado. For, as he tells his brother in the guise of a story, “the boy and the bunny” were once “inseparable,” with a secret hiding place of their own. And now that “bunny” is back. Home from cosmopolitan Berlin for his father’s funeral, Slaven (Andrija Žunac) catches Marko off guard. Despite training constantly as if to outrun his feelings, Marko returns again and again to the river, again and again to Slaven. An imported joint is shared, affections are renewed, and temperatures—and waters—rise.

Documentary

Executive produced by Elliot Page and Bob the Drag Queen, this on-the-couch and in-the-spotlight documentary charts the rise ’n grind ascent of a drag superstar. Through sweat and vocals, Peppermint trades relative Harlem obscurity for Drag Race glory as its first openly trans contestant, all while slaying society’s strictures. Whether vibing with famous friends like Laverne Cox and Sasha Velour or entering the dating scene while feeling devalued and pressured to pass, Peppermint lays out her truth. And regardless of the many obstacles littering her runway—personal and professional—she pursues her craft, knowing her “spirit belongs on the stage.” We are with Peppermint in the operating room during breast augmentation surgery, as a headliner on Broadway and during an historic pride celebration in Berlin, and in rehearsals as she prepares for sold out Nubia shows starring and produced by all Black queens. Then, as COVID hits and her tour is shut down, Peppermint’s resolve is put to the test as the career she so painstakingly constructed faces huge global shifts. Glammed up, laid low, ready for a fight for trans rights—this is Peppermint unfiltered and compelled, always, to create.

Short

When her childhood best friend falls in love, nostalgic teenager Dodo struggles to let go of the past and goes to increasingly dangerous lengths to secure her affections, threatening to spoil their idyllic lakeside holiday.

Feature

CROATIAN • ENGLISH ST | Marko, slight but mighty, seems always in control, always a champion—but what happens when he slips his banks? As “unstable air” portends torrential rains for a small Croatian village, the return of Marko’s former neighbour is the rush that might pull him under. Marko (Lav Novosel in a natural, understated performance) has a full life: a brother with Down syndrome (Leon Grgić) who he treats with a soft attentiveness; learning discipline from his father (Filip Šovagović) in the lead up to an arm-wrestling competition; chanting about female anatomy with his buds before pestering his girlfriend Petra (Franka Mikolaci) for sex. But there’s another side to his even-keeled bravado. For, as he tells his brother in the guise of a story, “the boy and the bunny” were once “inseparable,” with a secret hiding place of their own. And now that “bunny” is back. Home from cosmopolitan Berlin for his father’s funeral, Slaven (Andrija Žunac) catches Marko off guard. Despite training constantly as if to outrun his feelings, Marko returns again and again to the river, again and again to Slaven. An imported joint is shared, affections are renewed, and temperatures—and waters—rise.

FeatureVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

DANISH • FRENCH ST | With In Ashes, writer-director Ludvig Christian Næsted Poulsen grippingly toys with genre. He inflects one Danish collegian’s immersion in frantic hook-up culture amidst a relationship mysteriously ended with elements of psychological horror and the tension of a spy thriller. In 2017 Copenhagen, baby-faced Christian (Rex Leonard, a nervy knockout) is glued to his camera, determined to capture every giddy moment he spends with his long-distance boyfriend Aske (Lior Cohen). Flash forward to 2022 Aarhus, “the most wonderful city in the world,” and a scruffier Christian seems less than content. He interrogates his schoolmate’s perspective and confronts strangers over assumed slights. He’s plagued by an unspoken ailment. And Aske seems nowhere to be found. With each empty tryst, each hungrily inhaled cigarette, Christian descends into a type of madness. Or is it clarity? Aske’s reappearance, arriving with the jolt of a jump scare, may hold the key to that question, as desperation congeals into starry-eyed determination. For those drawn in by the enigmatic pull of All of Us Strangers, In Ashes will have you guessing ‘is this a romance or a tragedy’ until the very last second—perhaps, even, long after.